SmartBirds
Six young Egyptian Vultures were released in early June in the Eastern Rhodopes, Bulgaria. They spent over two months preparing for this moment of freedom in the “Egyptian Vulture School”, which is situated in the core of the species’ population and managed by the BSPB/BirdLife Bulgaria. Three of the released vultures were kindly provided by the Egyptian Vulture ex-situ breeding programme within EAZA – Nika was raised in Prague Zoo, and Adela and Sylva were raised in Zoo Ostrava (Czech Republic). The other three vultures – Veli, Kaloyan and Electra were rescued from their wild nests in the Eastern Rhodopes in 2023 as they hatched very late in the season and had low chances of survival and raised in the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Center – Green Balkans.
The young vultures spent over two months in the adaptation aviary under the daily observations and care of the experts from BSPB. During that time, they were adapting to the local conditions, observing the wild vultures feeding at the nearby vulture restaurant, learning to identify different food items, land and roost on a tree and practising their flight skills in the spacious aviary. A month before the release, all birds were equipped with GPS/GSM transmitters to follow their movements and underwent the last veterinary check by the vets from the WRBC to confirm that they were ready for a release.
In the first week after the release, the experts from BSPB closely monitored the birds as this is a critical period for them. One major challenge they face is learning to roost in inaccessible places to avoid attacks from terrestrial predators like foxes and jackals. Our team was always nearby to intervene in case of need, and if a bird was about to roost on the ground, they chased it away to force it to move to a better and safer location. However, most of the vultures started roosting on trees a few days after the release as they learned that the aviary, where a large tree is placed, was their favourite roosting spot during the adaptation.
After two weeks in the wild all vultures are doing well, five of them are regularly feeding at the vulture restaurant where safe food is provided by BSPB and also exploring the wider area. The sixth bird – Kaloyan turned to be the most adventurous of all and made a trip north to Romania before returning back to Bulgaria but settled in the north of the country near a cattle farm. We hope that after this long exploratory flight he will soon return back to the Eastern Rhodopes.
The Egyptian Vulture Reinforcement program started in Bulgaria in 2018 and so far 5 of the released individuals reached maturity and occupied breeding territories in the release area. The program is led by BSPB and implemented in partnership with Green Balkans, Prague Zoo and EAZA. The program is implemented in the frame of the “From the Iron Curtain to the Green Belt” project, funded by the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme (ELSP) that is managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative – a collaboration between the Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge of The Old Schools and leading internationally-focused biodiversity conservation organisations. The University and the ELSP are supported by Arcadia – a charitable fund of Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing.
